


and we can be pirates

by faerie_ground



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M, Other, Pre-Relationship, seemingly unrequited feelings, this is literally just an au of professor charles and ceo erik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:42:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28929732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faerie_ground/pseuds/faerie_ground
Summary: “Kitty,” Charles says reasonably, “it can’t be that bad, can it?”“DEFCON FIVE, CHARLES!” Kitty screams into the receiver, temporarily deafening Charles, before cutting the call.*Or Erik is the very scary CEO of his successful business and Charles is his childhood best friend who's the only one who can calm him down.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Comments: 27
Kudos: 203





	and we can be pirates

**Author's Note:**

> this is for sam, who got obsessed with ceo erik and prof charles but more importantly ceo erik. sam i hope i did sexy scary ceo erik justice
> 
> title taken from seven by taylor swift, which is also basically the inspiration for this fic

The call comes in the afternoon, an hour before Charles is supposed to teach his Intro to Genetics class. Frowning, Charles abandons the game of Candy Crush he’d admittedly been playing rather badly and picks it up. “Charles sp-”

“We need you, Prof,” Kitty says desperately into the phone. “He’s been in a temper all morning, and then Alex’s reports missed out a whole subsection, so he’s fired the entire marketing team! Please, Professor, you have to come immediately!”

Ah, Charles thinks, wincing. He fires off an email that class is cancelled, before packing up his things immediately. Even so, he keeps Kitty on the line anyway- Kitty does have the habit of exaggerating things. Just last week, she’d said she was on the verge of resigning, only for Charles to come running to the tall, horribly modernistic and highly atrocious Lehnsherr Corp building and finding Kitty in the lobby, laughing hand in hand with the other employees who’d had the misfortune to find themselves under Erik’s tyrannical rule. “Kitty,” he says reasonably, “it can’t be that bad, can it?”

“DEFCON FIVE, CHARLES!” Kitty screams into the receiver, temporarily deafening Charles, before cutting the call. Charles blinks bemusedly at his phone, before stowing it into his pocket and attempting to quicken his steps further, grabbing the walking cane by the side of the desk. Defcon five- Erik must have destroyed at least three conference rooms, then. The worst he’d ever gotten up to was Defcon three, and that had been traumatizing enough for everyone involved. Emma had drafted her resignation email, Erik had to temporarily go to the ER for busted knuckles and Charles had seriously considered signing Erik up for community counseling sessions, going so far as to give him a coupon.

Just before switching off the lights, Charles casts a glance back at his table. There’s a picture of him, Erik and Raven in their respective mid teens, arms around each other as they stand against the backdrop of the massive Xavier mansion. Raven’s beaming at the camera, eyes a bright gleaming yellow and a smile truly beautiful, but Charles and Erik are gazing at each other- Charles with a bright grin on his face, Erik with a much smaller but no less true smile, eyes unbearably soft. It’s Charles’ favourite picture for more than a few reasons, the sun glinting off Erik’s hair and his hand possessively curled around Charles’ shoulder, the grip clearly tight and unflinching. 

“Oh, Erik,” Charles says out loud with a sigh, and clicks off the lights. 

*

The office, as predicted, is a mess. 

Charles enters Lehnsherr Corp to papers flying about, Kitty yelling into the phone with her entire face red as a tomato and then looking up with undisguised relief, covering the receiver of the phone with one hand and pointing behind her. The closed door of Erik’s office has the shiny plaque announcing it to belong to the CEO of Lehnsherr Corp, askew at an angle that doesn’t look right. “He’s in there,” she says. “Please,  _ please _ fix this.”

The poor girl looks close to an asthma attack herself. Charles pats her on the hand, and says, “Hang in there, dear,” before knocking on the door. Predictably, Erik screams, “Kitty, I  _ said  _ leave me alone if you don’t want to be put on probation!”

He’s descended to threats, then. Charles winces. “It’s me, Erik,” he says and when he gets no response, gingerly opens the door of Erik’s office. 

It’s- chaos, but more importantly the Erik-Lehnsherr-specific kind of chaos, the kind of chaos that Charles is intimately familiar with as well as Kitty, and the rest of the unfortunate staff employed at Lehnsherr Corp. It’s a chaos only he is trained to fix, having grown up with it for the past few years of his life. There’s a metal stapler embedded in the ceiling, metal files and binders all over the floor, and the cabinet has a few suspicious dents in it. Erik himself has face-planted on the desk, hair flopping forward to cover his forehead and hands flopping at his sides uselessly. His tie is a crumpled ball at the corner and Charles picks it up, eyeing the sweat stains before grimacing and chucking it back on the floor. 

“Oh, darling,” he sighs, approaching the desk and after leaning the cane by the side of it, hoists himself up at the edge of it right beside Erik’s prone head and carding his hand through his hair, ignoring the twinge his knee gives him. Erik’s hair is his favourite thing to touch on the planet, as creepy as that sounds- soft as it is, smelling perpetually of lemon and that specific brand of shampoo Charles never manages to find at a local store. “You can’t just fire your entire marketing team.”

“I can and I will,” Erik says, furious, his head snapping up. “Alex handed in his report late with an entire section missing and it’s the final fucking draft, R&D went over their budget again  _ and  _ Kitty scheduled my 3pm meeting for 6pm, Charles, I swear, this company is full of incompetent, bumbering  _ fools!”  _ The last word is said on a bellow and he thumps his head back on the table again. 

Charles winces, and lightly presses two of his fingers to Erik’s temple. The instant migraine he gets is nearly overwhelming. There’s pangs of hunger, too, and worryingly, a slight dizziness. This isn’t Defcon five, it’s Defcon ten. When had Erik gotten this bad at taking care of himself? “And you’re having a headache now, too,” he says gently. “Erik, honestly. What did I tell you about skipping meals?” He dulls Erik’s pain receptors, making sure to infuse his mind with a blanket of warmth.

Erik visibly slumps into the table, and then makes grabby hands at Charles. Charles relents, scooting slowly while minding his knee right in front of Erik so that Erik can rest his forehead against his thigh, sighing in relief. “Thank you,” he mutters into Charles’ lap. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, I truly don’t.”

“Die, I think,” Charles says, fondly rubbing his thumb under Erik’s ear and watching as he whines in relief, melting even more until he’s all but a puddle in his chair. “Really, Erik. You have to start taking better care of yourself.”

Erik mumbles something incoherent. The air is less frazzled and tense, now- it takes on a significantly lighter tone, with Charles humming a mindless tune and rubbing concentric circles into Erik’s right temple with one hand, other hand smoothing down the planes of his back. Managing a company would be hard on anyone, Charles knows that, but it’s even harder and more severe for Erik, who’d wrested back control of Lehnsherr Corp back from Sebastian Shaw, a fairly villainous man who’d done his best to run the firm into the ground after taking it from Erik’s father. Taking back rightful control of his father’s company had been difficult enough, but Erik’s not satisfied with that- he has to be bigger, better, stronger than everyone else, bringing Lehnsherr Corp to new heights to appease the shadow of his wronged father, and so obviously at the expense of himself. 

Charles hates that. Charles hates the clear shadows of expectations that carve themselves into Erik’s skin, into his rapidly widening eyebags and deepening crinkles. Charles hates that he’s the only person visibly standing between Erik and a very heroic attempt at running himself into the ground. Charles hates that Erik cements his reputation as a terrifying boss when he’s in one of these moods because he’s not that, he’s the sweetest man on the planet with a heart of gold and he gives so much of himself, getting nothing back. 

Charles also remembers saying all of this once, drunk off his ass, to Raven and getting a look of disbelief right back. “You’re so far up his ass it's unbelievable,” she’d said, disgusted. “I have nothing but disrespect for you right now.”

“How was your date last night?” Erik asks Charles’ lap, and Charles starts. “The date? Oh- horrible.”

Erik’s head snaps up again, his reddened eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Was he awful to you? I’ll get Azazel on it, he’ll bring me his head in no time-”

“Erik, honestly!” Charles yelps, missing the warmth of Erik’s head on his thighs with a little more intensity than he probably should. “He didn’t do anything, I was just very bored. Honestly, he spent the whole time talking about his cat that had died last week. A bit of a downer, I think.” The man had been simply awful, and had left Charles to pick the bill at the end of the day. Charles was never trusting Raven’s blind dates again. 

“Well, you deserve better,” Erik says firmly. It’s the conviction in his voice that makes Charles’ heart stutter- Erik may not love him, not like Charles so dearly wants him to, but he knows Erik cares so much and that makes all the difference in the world. 

“And you deserve to re-hire your entire marketing team back,” Charles says, and continues when Erik groans, kicking his feet like he’s David having a tantrum, “no, listen to me- hire them back, Erik, Kitty’s getting swamped out front picking up their slack. And you know, you can put the fear of god into the R&D team, they won’t all run away to Stark Industries the second you raise your voice at them.”

“That bastard always filches from me,” Erik mutters murderously, before focusing his gaze back on Charles. Being the center of Erik Lehnsherr’s gaze is a heady thing- all that intensity, all that concentration focused on you like a strong, overpowering ray of sunlight. Erik should monetize it, Charles thinks resentfully. “Thank you, Charles. The fact that you have to be called in to calm me down- it’s embarrassing.” 

“Who else would do it?” Charles says, grinning. He doesn’t mind, honestly- it’s a well known fact that Erik Lehnsherr and his towering moods of rage and fury can only be soothed back into calm by Charles. “You terrify everyone else far too much. I thought poor Kitty was about to go into hysterics.” 

Erik sighs, rubbing his eyes with his fist. He’s still exhausted, visibly dropping and hunched in on himself. “Cancel the rest of the day,” Charles says suddenly. “We’ll eat at that Thai place you’ve been wanting to for ages. And then we can go home and have a movie marathon with David, he’s allowed to stay up late because he finished all his homework yesterday.”

Erik blinks at him. “I couldn’t possibly impose-”

“When have you ever done that?” Charles asks, annoyed. “Really, Erik.”

Erik still looks unconvinced, hesitant in a way he rarely is. Today must have been earth shakingly terrible for him. Charles makes a note to himself to talk to Kitty, find out if there’s anything underfoot going on in there. “I’ll crack open the good Macallan scotch,” he suggests, and finally Erik breaks into a smile, small and genuine.

“How can I possibly resist that?” He asks, brushing his pinky over the top of Charles’ index finger. Charles beams back in response, his heart thundering within his chest to a beat he wishes he could forget.

“Knew you’d cave in,” Charles says. “Now help me down, I don’t even know how I managed to get up here.”

*

Charles and Erik are best friends.

Charles and Erik are best friends ever since they meet in kindergarten in the middle of a fight, put in timeout and then promptly making up afterwards, so much so that Erik supposedly runs home and tells his mother that he’s met the boy he’ll forever spend his life with. Charles and Erik are best friends through primary school where they hang out in the backyard of Charles’ big old mansion, swinging under the trees and playing pirates and sailors amidst the tall blades of grass. 

Charles and Erik are best friends through high school, through Charles’ accident with a drunk driver that smashes his right kneecap and mercilessly shatters his dreams of running track into pieces, through months of physio therapy and through girlfriends who they force to accept them as a package deal. Charles and Erik are best friends through college, and then through university even when Charles moves to Oxford and Erik stays near his mother

Charles and Erik are best friends through their years braving adulthood, through Erik’s hard fought battles to win his company back from Shaw and through Charles obtaining tenure at NYU, finding out a year later that a drunken one night stand with a free spirited war journalist had resulted in him having a precocious genius of a son, incidentally also a telepath and with other secondary mutations such as telekinesis and pyrotechnics that makes Charles fret over him like a mother hen. 

Charles and Erik are best friends through and through, withstanding the test of time, withstanding his mother’s sneers, withstanding the judgement of his colleagues and his other friends questioning how he could stand a downer like Erik, withstanding their own differences in how they viewed the position of mutants in general, withstanding possibly everything in their path. 

Charles should be grateful. Not many, he knows, have the same luck as him to have a best friend stay with them since childhood, forever by their side through thick and thin. He should be thankful for what he’s gotten, and not ask for anything else- much like what his own mother used to say.  _ You’ve gotten far above what you deserve, _ she’d say,  _ and someone might take it all away if you act a little too unworthy of it. _ Charles doesn’t want that.

And yet, Charles thinks, sometimes, that he can’t help wishing- can’t help hoping-

It all comes to a head one day when he realises that even his son has caught on.

“Daddy,” David says, banging his spoon against the table. He’s been very remiss about eating his food, lately- it’s mildly concerning. Charles is well aware that Gabrielle is the better cook between the two of them but when she’s off on one of her trips and therefore unavailable to care for David for an extended period of time- this time round, at least six months- it often falls down to Charles to be the cook. The less said about his cooking, the better. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy-”

“David, David, David,” Charles laughs, trying and failing to redirect the spoon back to the cereal. Really, were all six year olds this averse to food? “Eat your cereal, now, there’s a good chap-”

“Mama says that you and Uncle Erik are in love,” David says, and Charles’ brain grinds to an abrupt halt. “She says that he’s your spec-spesh-  _ spec-ial  _ friend.” He looks proud of himself for figuring the word out.

Charles, meanwhile, tries his best not to panic outright. Damn Gabrielle and her big mouth. Damn Charles and his own big mouth, confessing things about Erik’s eyes and Erik’s hair and Erik’s tiny waist to Gabrielle under the duress of alcohol and about a joint or two, and damn Gabrielle for apparently repeating said things to a very very impressionable six year old. “Mama was just- lying, love,” Charles says, ruffling his hair. “Eat your cereal, David, the bus gets here in an hour.”

David finally dips his spoon in the soggy cereal bowl, causing Charles to heave a sigh of relief, and then ignores it again. “You said lying is bad,” he says, accusatory, or as accusatory as a child can possibly manage. 

“That I did, and your Mama did a mighty bad thing,” Charles says desperately, eyeing the clock. “David, come on, the cereal-”

David finally eats a mouthful, and then another mouthful. After the third swallow, he says, “Should I call Uncle Erik Papa?”

“David!” Charles yelps. He’s absolutely going to have to talk to Gabrielle, this is ridiculous. Resolutely, he ignores the tiny lurch that his stomach gives at the hint of David calling Erik Papa. God knows Erik is halfway there himself, introducing David to his Rabbi and bringing over his mother’s latkes whenever possible. “What has gotten into you? Eat your cereal, or there’s no TV time for you later.”

For a second, David looks as if he might burst into tears, but then he settles firmly into a scowl, eating his cereal so violently half of it ends up on his shirt anyway. 

Charles ends up recounting the whole story to Raven, laughing as he does so. “And he thought we were in love, can you believe it?” he gasps, clutching at his ribs. “Honestly, the nerve of Gabrielle-”

“I can believe it, actually,” Raven says, and when Charles gapes at her, snorts. “Charles, really. Just last week he dropped you off  _ and _ picked you up from the university. He turned down that girl who asked him out just because it’s Transformers night with you and David. Whenever he has one of his infamous temper tantrums they call you in-  _ only  _ you, mind you, even if he’s dating someone else at the time.”

“Nothing wrong with Transformers night,” Charles mutters. They have a lot of fun, actually, him and David pretending to be Optimus Prime and Bumblebee chasing down Erik who pretends to be Megatron. The night always ends with all of them collapsing in a heap, Erik telling both of them to get off him before he gets crushed to death. 

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Raven exclaiming, jabbing her straw at him. “It’s not healthy, Charles! It’s pathetic! Just tell him you love him and put him out of his misery, I have a betting pool going on and I don’t want to lose.”

Raven- and Gabrielle, and Moira from work, and Angel, the barista from the coffeeshop they love to frequent, and Hank down in the labs- all think it's so easy. Just tell Erik you love him, they say, and it will all work out. 

Charles knows it won’t. They have had a good thing going, him and Erik, for the past couple of years as best friends. He’s not about to ruin that by confessing his very inconvenient, out of pocket feelings for Erik. So what if he’s absolutely arse over tit in love with Erik? That’s something for him to ruminate on, cry over with copious use of his mother’s treasured wine cabinet, and then take to his own grave. 

*

The Thai place is predictably, very crowded, and they only manage to get tables because of copious use of Charles’ cane and Erik’s bony elbows. Erik slumps at the table, sighing out and practically inhaling the food the server sets in front of them. In this clustered eatery off the side of the road, tables hastily pushed together, Erik strangely looks out of place in his half unbuttoned shirt and grey jacket that hangs open, a temptation and invitation rolled in one. Charles has to look away, swallowing the sudden dryness of his throat and take a huge fortifying sip of his beer. He still has all the magazine clippings of Erik’s various shoots, Fortune 500 and Forbes and on one very memorable occasion, GQ, that is still Charles’ most prized possession.

“You should really get rid of that thing,” Erik had grumbled, when he’d seen it on Charles’ bedside table once. “It’s hideous. I look horrific. I don’t know what Emma was thinking, making me do it.” The cover is of Erik leaning back against a car, dressed in a skin tight grey shirt and a black vest, a small necklace around his neck. He looks rakishly handsome, green-gray eyes piercing through the cover and staring straight into Charles’ soul, forearms bulging against the sleeve of his shirt. There’s a reason why he was named Sexiest Businessman of The Year for three years straight- a very amusing three years, for Raven especially, and a very distressing three years for Charles due to the string of partners that had attached themselves to Erik afterwards.

“Is Raven upset about your failed date?” Erik asks suddenly. He’s still eerily focused on his food, of which there’s only a little bit left. He’d been starving, Charles realises, and calls the server over to order more. “I mean, I know she- oh, come on, don’t do that-”

“Silent, Erik,” Charles says sharply, before ordering more green curry chicken. “You need more food in you, and you know, your mother’s been worrying way too much too.” They’re in the middle of rolling out a new product, Charles knows that, some environmentally friendly electronic appliance undercut at an accessible price that had caused Erik’s board of directors much grief, but that’s still no reason for Erik to run himself into the ground like this. “You need to call her back.”

“I will,” Erik says, rubbing his hand over his face. He at least looks marginally better now, with a little more food in him, Charles notes appreciatively. “Well, is Raven? Bugging you about more dates, that is.”

“You know Raven,” Charles says morosely, stabbing at his chicken. “She does nothing but.” Raven had been championing for them, having grown up with them herself and knowing exactly how many times Charles had doodled  _ Charles Xavier-Lehnsherr _ in his notebooks with tiny hearts. She’s long since given up on the idea of Erik and Charles together as a lost cause however, emphasising that Charles needed to either get a move on or- well, move on. Charles doesn’t really know how going on horrible blind dates helps with this, but anything to get her off his back. 

“You should tell her to back off,” Erik says, still avoiding Charles’ gaze as he finishes off the last of his food and tips his head back with a sigh, the long line of his throat automatically drawing Charles’ gaze. Of course Charles knows that Erik is beautiful, but there are moments- moments like these when Charles is suddenly aware that he’s reaching far out of his league to be in love with a man like Erik. They  _ are _ best friends, true, but he’s seen Erik grow from a boy to the incredibly successful man he is now and Charles- Charles is still floundering, wondering if he’s doing right by his kid half his days and struggling to get tenure no matter what Hank says about him not having to worry the other half. 

They never used to have this problem when they were kids, Charles thinks sullenly as he stabs through his chicken again. 

“It’s no trouble, really,” Charles says as they finally sit back, full from the second helping of food. Erik’s finally looking directly at him, his gaze soft and unbearably warm. It makes something in Charles’ chest heat up, the warmth eating him from the inside out. “Anything that keeps her happy, I guess. I’d like it if she set me up with people less-”

“Fucking boring,” Erik interjects, a wry grin on his lips, and Charles laughs. “Yeah, that.”

Right then and there, with Erik looking full and drowsy, staring at Charles with that still unbearably soft look in his eyes, Charles considers saying something. He considers saying that he loves Erik- has done so for years, has done so ever since they’d been in a tiny classroom in kindergarten and he’d punched Erik in the ribs while Erik had punched him in the face, has done so ever since he woke up from his accident with Erik hunched over by his bedside, face in his hands, has done so ever since Erik forced him to get some sleep in the midst of finishing his second doctorate by drugging his tea. He considers saying that there’s no one else for him, that there’s one reason why his previous relationships and past dates have all failed miserably and that reason is Erik, just Erik. 

A thousand little truths and they trip over his tongue like quicksand, melting back beneath his skin and disappearing. Erik smiles at him, small grin stretching his lips into something beautiful, something otherworldly, and Charles keeps his secrets locked tight in a box where they can never breathe, only compress on themselves and vibrate until one day, he might explode with the force of them. 

Instead, Charles smiles back. “Want to hear about what David did in class the other day?” He offers. “Gabby was so proud, but I couldn’t even look at him.”

“Gods, yes please,” Erik bursts out, his hand creeping over the table towards Charles’ hand and then abortively moving away to grip at his beer instead, knuckles white. Charles breathes, thinking.  _ One day. Maybe one day.  _

Until then, he’ll be happy with Erik Lehsnherr as his best friend. 

**Author's Note:**

> this ends like that bc its honestly just a one-off and not meant to be extended into a multi chapter or anything. it was also supposed to be way shorter but if you know me you know i love to ramble. perhaps if there's enough interest in this i Could be persuaded to turn this into a proper fic but til then hope u liked it!
> 
> as always drop me a comment + kudos! feel free to drop me an ask on either my [twitter](https://twitter.com/ROBBIETURNCR) or [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/himbomcavoy)


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